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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Waterman Tracy Moore (left) and former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Craig Suro, chairman of the Tangier Island Oyster Co
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Andy Stefanovich of New Richmond Ventures
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Tangier Island Oysters
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Tim Hickey of Tangier Island Oyster Co. and James Wesson of VMRC
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Jim Wesson of VMRC
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
David Johnson (center left) and Jim Wesson look at oysters.
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Photo by Michael D. Congdon
Tangier Island oysters
Fourteen miles off Virginia’s Eastern Shore on the Chesapeake Bay, Tangier Island comprises 1.2 square, dry miles (literally and figuratively — there is no alcohol on the island) surrounded by duck-filled marshes, rustic shoreline and a wild beach. Crabbing has been the primary occupation for generations. But that way of life is dying. Enter the oyster, with seeds planted by former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the Tangier Island Oyster Co.
Inspiration for the company occurred two years ago during a duck-hunting trip. Collegiate School alumni Tim Hickey and Craig Suro, struck by the beauty of Tangier Island and the plight of the area's struggling watermen, decided to see if they could help change the primary water crop from unsustainable blue crabs and a short oyster season (December to February), to farmed, year-round aquaculture. I sat down with Suro and partner David A. Johnson on Wednesday to talk about the venture. (Photos were supplied by Michael D. Congdon, another member of the Tangier Island Oyster team.)
The idea of planting the non-reproducing Crassostrea virginica, or Eastern oyster — which uses all its energy to grow big faster instead of spawning like native oysters — was easy to swallow, though not all the local watermen are jumping on board. At least not yet.
“We have natural oyster rocks all around Tangier, and we’ve always [gone] out and caught the wild oysters out in the sound,” says Tangier Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge, whose son, also named James, is one of those who’s giving oyster farming a go.
Others, according to Eskridge are “standing back and watching” to see how the first season pans out. The oysters “are growing really fast,” he says. As for the wild oysters, Eskridge says, “We are having one of the best years ever, making our catch limits in an hour or two. The farm makes it so more people can be involved” in reaping the oysters.
Cuccinelli, acting as chief legal counsel, registered the Tangier Island Oyster Co. as a limited-liability company with the State Corporation Commission in April. The plan to grow oysters in a harbor connected to an eroding island might sound more like a cautionary tale than what Suro, chairman of the Tangier Island Oyster Co., dubs a “benevolent business model.”
Suro’s job is to attract brainpower: Andy Stefanovich of New Richmond Ventures handles marketing, and Johnson, former head of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, acts as an aquatic advisor, in addition to both being investors. About 23 others are funding the fledgling business, helping to supply the Tangier watermen with 1 million oyster spats to plant a quarter-mile offshore this past June.
Cuccinelli, according to Suro, provides legal savvy and plenty of connections, but it’s the sweat equity from the Tangier crabbers and oystermen that are needed to make it work. They provide the boats, the labor and the knowledge of the waterway. In such an insular community — where visitors can still hear remnants of a 16th-century English dialect — it couldn’t be done without their approval.
The former attorney general and 2013 Republican gubernatorial candidate says in a phone interview that he and the others involved in Tangier Island Oyster Co. believe that "this is an opportunity to do well while doing good." He adds, "Nobody is going to get rich off this."
Cuccinelli continues, “We thought we could do it and stay in the black. We were [and] are very attracted to helping out Tangier Island, one of the very economically distressed areas of Virginia that needed a boost. The market was ready for it."
He also points to environmental benefits of raising oysters: "It helps the bay; oysters filter the water and their shells help with phosphorous." Long-term goals include setting up a foundation to help preserve Tangier, Cuccinelli says. “We’d like to keep adding more oysters and to raise awareness about the island.”
Though he wasn't previously an oyster eater, he says, “One of the things I’m learning is the distinction between river and bay oysters.”
Virginia is divided into seven distinct oyster regions, ranging from the saltiest Chincoteague oysters of Region 1, to the milder, mineral tang found in Region 5, where Rappahannock River Oysters reign. Tangier Island Oyster Co. is within Region 2, the Bayside Eastern Shore, but its oysters are exposed to choppier, saltier water than the oysters grown closer to shore in creeks and marshes. Suro would like to see an eighth oyster region, designated Tangier Island, created to better convey their bivalves’ unique flavors.
Jim Wesson of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission's Conservation and Replenishment Department says that "adding another oyster region is no big deal. Tangier could easily be added in.” He continues, “The Virginia Shellfish Growers map is a marketing tool; no one was there to represent Tangier when it was drawn up.” As for the oysters’ flavor, he describes it as a mid-salinity oyster, similar to those found in the mouth of the Rappahannock River.
The first harvest could come as early as June 2015, but a more likely date is late August, when the briny beauties — shaped into deep, polished cups by rough water and fattened on diet of sun-warmed, surface-level algae — will have matured for 16 months. Suro says that he’d like to sell the oysters to gourmet groceries, but also mentions Richmond restaurants as possibilities, too. There are no plans for a restaurant to be built around the fledgling oyster farm, like Rappahannock River Oysters’ Merroir in Middlesex County’s Topping community.
Tangier Island Oyster Co. hopes to climb to the top of the supplier heap while helping watermen filter excess nitrogen from the Chesapeake Bay via oysters — and avoiding the hazards of growing too much, too fast.
